Talk:George McClellan
Apologies for making the thumbnail, which had previously been lacking, so much longer and more detailed than the norm. Once I start sounding off, there's no stopping me. Turtle Fan 03:48, 11 February 2009 (UTC) :I toned down some of the editorializing. Generally, people can see what a flop he was--adjectives and adverbs probably don't add much. TR 04:43, 11 February 2009 (UTC) ::Aww, come on, he deserves it. ::If he was a friggin moron who was promoted well above his abilities, no help for that. If he was a craven coward who would avoid danger at all costs, well, that's more problematic but not the worst character flaw of all time. But the most disturbing explanation of all is that he was nostalgic for the antebellum and the regional back-and-forth and was afraid of what the peace would bring if the North decisively defeated the South. To this end he deliberately mismanaged his campaigns to make it look like there was a military parity between the regions. Then the political leaderships would be forced to admit a stalemate on the battlefield and negotiate a peace--forcing the Union to treat with the rebels' illegal government. ::Even I don't want to believe it--a US general capable of that level of treason while continuing to serve in his country's uniform? But he wasn't dumb, and he wasn't cowardly, either; his early career proved that he had plenty of native ability and personal courage. And the sheer magnitude of his boneheadedness! Nobody but nobody could seriously believe the Rebs had anywhere near the battle strength Pinkerton was reporting. And he flat-out lied to Burnside's face about having no reserve at the end of Antietam. How could he just forget three corps' worth of men? And he really and truly bragged about remaining in possession of the field at that fight for weeks, when Lee was already back in Fredericksburg! Meade pressed Lee harder than that the following summer, and his army was in worse shape than McClellan's. ::I mean, history is full of incompetent people who get into positions of power, but no one could be that consistently braindead and become General-in-Chief, certainly not in a country that was close enough to a meritocracy to see it with a telescope, about as close as any large community is likely to get on a regular basis. ::McClellan's presidential platform shows the same level of treasonous sentiment. We couldn't win? Oh for God's sake. Argue that a war of attrition is not worth the cost, that total warfare is immoral, whatever; but with Richmond itself under seige and the entire Confederate interior ripped up to hell and gone by massive Union armies that were encountering no significant opposition, it was glaringly obvious by Election Day that we had the game well in hand. A retarded banana couldn't've been convinced that the cause was lost at that point. Turtle Fan 05:10, 11 February 2009 (UTC) By the way, TR, originally this talk page consisted of an unsigned message "McClellan Rules!" by an unlogged-in IP. It dated to April 7, 2006, which was right after we came here, long before we were named mods and longer still before we knew how to use all the features. Out of idle curiosity I got some info on whence that IP came and it looks like it comes from an office in Broomfield, CO. I know Colorado's huge and I've never heard of Broomfield. You? Turtle Fan 05:19, 11 February 2009 (UTC) ::Broomfield is one of several large towns that has appeared and grown between Denver and Boulder. In my childhood, a fart would have blown the town off the prarie. In 1997, it was large enough to successfully have its portion of Boulder County incorporated as Broomfield County on a referendum. TR 05:32, 11 February 2009 (UTC) :::Seems to he home to some pretty awkward military historians. Turtle Fan 11:36, 11 February 2009 (UTC) GotS McClellan and Canada Actually he wanted the US Army to go to Canada because he felt the northern edge of US territory was not far enough away from the massive Confederate army to satisfy his desire to retreat. Turtle Fan 16:02, August 18, 2010 (UTC) :Oh, snap!. TR 20:07, August 18, 2010 (UTC) The Semyon Budyenny Thing. Why is McClellan being compared to Budyenny? While I see some similarities here are some difference= 1)Stalin may have sacked Budyenny and made him a scapegoat but he wasn't displeased enough to make him a zek and pretty much had the moustachioed bungler in his good graces.McClellan was not in Lincoln's good graces after the former failed. 2)Budyenny was a minor scapegoat (if he was a major one, he would get a bullet in the back of the head) while McClellan was pretty much reviled by the military establishment.Zhukov15 (talk) 19:35, July 13, 2013 (UTC) :Not sure. The whole thing really was out of place. It's gone now. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:51, July 13, 2013 (UTC) Inconsistencies in Southern Victory I don't see anything to justify this. Incidentally, this is why footnotes are preferred; it gives an idea of what to look for since it would be connected to a particular portion of an article. ML4E (talk) 16:10, December 2, 2016 (UTC) :I think the inconsistency lies less with what actually HT did and more with disagreement among fans about what we think HT did. There are some who argue that HT is saying that McClellan's use of Special Order 191 was the key his "win" at Antietam, that by having the plans he was able to "brilliantly" countered Lee's elaborate plans. Others argue that HT is saying that simply having knowledge that Lee was coming was enough to get McClellan off his ass and move against Lee; as Lee's plan required surprise in order to work, McClellan's ability to give battle on his own terms rather than Lee's was enough to FUBAR Lee. I fall into the latter camp; HT has said quite a bit about Antietam, specifically that McClellan didn't win so much as he managed not to lose. TR (talk) 16:32, December 2, 2016 (UTC) ::I see. The problem is that the Inconsistencies article doesn't talk about that. This might be a case where a "Lit. Comm." might be justified within the article to discuss this. It might be better within the Special Orders 191 article rather than this one. :::Huh, I guess that was deleted in the past. I'm personally fine with removing it. I'm not crazy about discussing fan theories and schisms. TR (talk) 16:56, December 2, 2016 (UTC) ::Incidentally, one of Turtledove's contributions to 101 Stumbles in the March of History is about this and how McClellan could have ended the Civil War earlier if he had pursued more aggressively. The essay tends to give credence to the the latter interpretation. ML4E (talk) 16:43, December 2, 2016 (UTC) :My thought process in calling him an inconsistency way back in the day was this: The real reason the Lost Orders were such a boon to Union intelligence is that they revealed that Lee's army would be scattered all across the countryside, and offered essentially step-by-step instructions on how to defeat the ANV in detail. But by the time McClellan got around to offering battle, there was only one Confederate division still separate from the main body, and even that division managed to make it to the Antietam battlefield before the battle ended thanks to a grueling forced march. So McClellan made so little use of the orders that it seemed to me (and still seems) that without them things could not have gone much better for Lee. However, all these years later I realize I rather badly overplayed this one and am prepared to walk it back. ::I don't know much about the ACW but I looked up the locations of Sharpsburg, Maryland and Camp Hill. Since the latter is near Harrisburg, Penn. it seems to imply that Turtledove had McClellan dither and let Lee advance another hundred miles or so before offering (or being forced into) battle. As I said about 101 Stumbles, HT takes the opposite approach with McClellan being more aggressive and virtually destroying the AoNV. HT's thought process seems to be that Special Orders 191 at least got McClellan moving even if not as quickly as he should have and brought about something that could be viewed as a victory, no matter how narrow. ML4E (talk) 17:53, December 3, 2016 (UTC) :You know what really sucks about McClellan, though? I was so sure that after this year I'd no longer be able to describe him as the worst president we've never had. And I still can--but even he would have been better than the worst president we've ever had, or will have ever had. :( Turtle Fan (talk) 02:07, December 3, 2016 (UTC) Not a commanding general ATL I saw that Mac was incorrectly listed as a General in Chief ATL. This is not so. He was out before the POD of either GOTS or SV, and in LatA he might get the job someday but isn't there yet.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:37, March 14, 2018 (UTC) GotS Political Party Jonathan added the following link in the GotS template: "Political Party: Independent coalition (1864)". The discussion in Talk:Independent#McClellan/Everett '64 in The Guns of the South makes me question the validity of such a link. Thoughts? ML4E (talk) 17:18, April 18, 2018 (UTC) :I think we can live without it. TR (talk) 20:46, April 18, 2018 (UTC) :Me too. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:20, April 20, 2018 (UTC)